


disturb the story

by theformerone



Series: resolve [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Yamanaka Ino, F/F, F/M, Mission Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-01 18:29:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13300722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: "The Uchiha and his team have been spotted in Hot Springs country," Tsunade says. "They're spending an awful lot of money and I want to know what for."Ino goes still at Sakura's side. From the corner of her eye, she can see Neji's mouth purse itself into a thin line."This is not a retrieval op, this is intel. I want you to get in, find out what he's doing, who he's doing it for, and get back out. Whatever you do, do not engage."Sakura knows that whatever she is, she isn't ready for this.





	disturb the story

The ceiling fan spun dead summer air in the living room. Sweat clung fast to Sakura's brow and the breath that came out of her stomach was too warm for her liking. Ino moans from where she lays on the floor and Sakura picks up her call like they are angry birds, shouting for better weather.

"I don't know, what do you want to do today?" 

"I  _don't know,_ what do  _you_ want to do today?"

"If you two don't stop talking," Shikamaru mumbles from the living room floor, "I'm going to kill both of you."

Ino looks at her from over the coffee table. Sakura raises one pink eyebrow. They don't need Ino's clan jutsu to know that the tickling they're about to unleash on Shikamaru will be legendary to say the least. It's only when Sakura finds she can't launch herself at the brown haired boy that she pouts. 

"You're the worst," she says lamely. 

Shikamaru breaks his hand sign from his place on the floor and Sakura's body belongs to herself again. 

"I wouldn't have to be if you two weren't so ridiculous."

Ino huffs and rolls onto her back, jutsu broken on her as well. It's the middle of summer and the humidity has everyone in the Yamanaka main household feel like dying. Or at least the three chuunin in Ino's living room. Leaving the doors open to let cool breezes in hadn't worked and now they only have the ceiling fan spinning above them to ease the heat. 

There is a plate of watermelon rinds on the coffee table, seeds spat out inelegantly all over the same plate. Ino's mom had the patience of a saint, to deal with the three of them being disgusting in her household. Sakura can't help but appreciate it. 

"I want," Ino says, "a mission."

Sakura can't help but agree. 

"You're just bored," Shikamaru replies. "The second Tsunade-sama actually makes you do something, you'll be complaining about moving in the heat."

Sakura rolls her eyes and then rolls onto her stomach. She can feel the sweat beading on her body, pooling and slipping down her back. She feels  _disgusting._

But it had been nice, being invited back over to the Yamanaka residence. She hadn't spent much time there since before the Chuunin Exams, and before that, it must have been since before she and Ino decided to be rivals in love. Her time spent at the Yamanaka's before the exams had been strained not for lack of familiarity or comfort, but because Sakura had test taking anxiety bad enough to spoil any get-together and had insisted on studying the most arcane of subjects at the dinner table. 

Still, her return had been welcomed warmly enough. She slipped back into the fold of blond pupil-less ninja without so much as a hiccup. It was like she had never even left at all. 

But Shikamaru is right. The heat is oppressive. She's been shirking her training with Team Eight but Gai will hear of no such thing. He sends Lee and Tenten shaped runners to her bedroom window when she's even two or three minutes late to their morning runs or taijutsu practices. Sakura would much rather spend the sweltering summer in the cool, air conditioned hospital, thank you very much. Not to mention it's giving her practice knitting pulverized bone back together from nothing, which is probably one of the most irritating things she's ever learned. If head wounds were stubborn, bone so smashed it wasn't even sure it was bone anymore was twice as aggravating. 

"Is Chouji-kun still coming over?" Sakura asks after a moment, forehead pressed to the floor. He'll probably bring popsicles if he does and Sakura  _really_ hopes that he does. 

"I think so," Ino mutters, blowing her fine white blonde bangs out of her face. She had pinned them back hours ago, had done up her long ponytail into a tight bun to keep the hair off her sweaty back. 

Sakura groans and rubs her hands over her face. Shikamaru lets out an ugly groan. Sakura twitches. She recognizes that groan. He always does it precisely when something irritating is about to happen to her. He's warned her about plenty of Ino's sneak attacks in the last few months, enough so that when he so much as grunts she's automatically on edge. 

She feels like she should be offended. One of her year mates has conditioned her to the sound of his voice. But she really does prefer being able to even out her stance or to guess how far to the left she should sidestep when Ino comes barreling into her bodily. 

"What is it?" she asks, eyes narrowed at Shikamaru. 

He rolls up to sitting with an extraordinary amount of effort. He rubs his temples and cups his chin in his hand. 

"You asked for it."

A few moments later, Ino's mother Masumi enters. 

"There's a messenger for you, Ino," she says. "You, too, Sakura-chan."

Sakura raises a brow but rises to her feet as Ino does. 

"She stopped at your parents' house," Ino's mother says as she guides them to the front door, "but they told her they could find you here."

Sakura wonders who on earth her parents would just give her whereabouts until she gets to the front door. The genin messenger is Moegi. 

She reaches out for the orange haired girl and wrangles her into a noogie that Moegi doesn't even try to avoid. 

"Sakura-nee-chan!" she shouts. "I'm on the clock!"

"Then you shouldn't have let me grab you, huh?"

Moegi grumbles but starts wriggling. She starts to jam her foot down onto Sakura's instep, but Sakura's just a little bit older and a whole lot faster. Moegi's foot dents the nice wood of the Yamanaka main house's porch. 

Sakura lets out a low whistle. 

"Nice strength," Sakura says. "Are you augmenting or have you been doing the strength training I told you to do?"

Moegi smiles up at her from the chokehold Sakura has managed to get her into.

"Strength training," she says, beaming. "My control isn't good enough to start enhancing what I can do, yet."

Sakura flicks Moegi on the nose but lets the younger girl go. 

"You'll get there if you work at it," Sakura replies. "It takes practice. Everything does."

"I hate to interrupt this touching moment, but I will anyway."

Ino's got her arms folded across her chest and she gives the porch a pointed look. Moegi goes red and leaps back off of the porch and away from Sakura. 

"Godaime-sama has a mission for the two of you," the genin says with a polite click of her heels. "Your third teammate has already been notified. You're expected in five minutes." 

Moegi holds out her hand for a tip. Ino slaps her open palm. Moegi makes a face, but turns and walks away, probably headed for the tower. Sakura looks back to Ino. She nods her head towards the door and they head inside to put their shoes on. Ino's only in her purple midriff and the pair of black leggings she usually wears under her skirt. Sakura's in her red top and black shorts. Neither of them had bothered with their favorite high knee boots. Their sandals are short around the ankle, resembling Tsunade and Shizune's favored footwear without the heel. It was much too hot for anything else.

"Should I tell Chouji and Shikamaru to wait for you two until you get back?" Ino's mother asks. 

Ino shrugs her shoulders at her mother, patting at her hair in case she looks unseemly. 

"Shika won't get up unless something interesting happens and Chouji will show up because Shika's here," she reasons. She shrugs again, a dainty lift and drop of her shoulder. "We'll be back soon. Let them rot in the living room for a little while."

They head out not long after that. They take the rooftops because they're _chuunin_  now and damn proud of it. It's worth it for the looks on civilian and academy student faces. Even the genin who haven't learned how to mould their chakra to that degree look up, gobsmacked at half of the Konoha Eleven's kunoichi are flying across the village. 

Their gazes fall neatly on Sakura, better than they had when she was younger. Before, it was because of her huge forehead or her short temper. Now it's because she's the Godaime's apprentice, contracted to the thousand slugs of Shikkotsu Forest. Because she's decimated training grounds with her fingertips alone. Has healed more than half of the shinobi of the village and nearly all of the civilians at least once. People look at her now because they admire her, because they like her. They trust her. And that feels  _extraordinary._

Ino's twice as terrifying. She's the Yamanaka clan heir, has spent the past three years between her Ino-Shika-Cho training and the Chuunin Exams in the bowels of T&I in every specialization. She's Morino Ibiki's apprentice and the pride of her clan. She's got a (very uncomfortable, in Sakura's opinion) number of low level solo honeypot infiltrations under her belt. She's gunning for her father's position in Analysis. If Inoichi isn't careful, she'll snatch it from him before long. She's got a tight specialization with Intel but her work as a botanist encouraged her into Shizune's open arms, turning Ino into a part time poison expert. Shizune was more than happy to have an apprentice of her own and now, Ino's just as scary with a set of senbon as Shizune or Genma. 

If Ino wasn't careful, her talents would make her one of the deadliest assassins Konoha had ever seen.

Their spars, to Sakura's endless amusement often end in stalemates. Ino hadn't tried getting inside of her head since that debacle at their first Chuunin Exams, so she relies more heavily on her weapons and her eerily accurate understanding of the way Sakura thinks. It never ceases to surprise her, when she makes a move only to have Ino about five steps ahead of her. 

They touch down outside of the tower in step with one another. Sakura can't help but bump her hip into her friend's as they check in with the first floor secretary. Ino bumps her back as they head up the stairs, and childishly they race up the stairs.

They're out of breath and laughing by the time they hit the door. They take a second to steady themselves before Ino makes her polite knock and they enter. 

Neji is already inside, and he peers at them as they scramble to look more presentable. Neji is ridiculously unflappable. Sakura is going to file a complaint.

"You called us, Tsunade-sama," Ino says, shutting the door as the two of them enter.

"Yes, I did," Tsunade said. "Did you tip your little messenger?"

Sakura snickers as Ino rolls her eyes. 

"I rarely got tip as a genin messenger," Ino says blithely. "It's a tradition that builds character."

Tsunade laughs and waves them inside. Shizune is absent, and Sakura wonders if she's out on a mission or maybe if she's holed up in the hospital. 

"I've got an assignment for you three," Tsunade says. Sakura snaps to attention. It's peculiar, getting missions. She's not officially a Konoha shinobi considering her promises to Onyomi, but she isn't really a missing nin either. Calling herself an 'independent contractor' makes her stomach churn, but it's a better title than mercenary. She takes home just as much money as regular shinobi do and she's free to enter and leave the village at her discretion, so that she can maintain her end of her bargain with the slugs. She's like Jiraiya, except she doesn't have a kill on sight order from every woman identifying person in Fire Country.

She can see Ino out of the corner of her eye rise to her full height. She thinks with a light grin on her face, that Shikamaru is always right. 

"It's a C-Rank in Yugakure. Three weeks long. Yes, in the middle of summer," she says. "Recent intel suggests Oto has opened business operations in Hot Springs country, and I don't like how little I know about it."

Sakura purses her lips and does not think of what Oto, what Orochimaru could possibly want in Yuga.

"We also have reason to believe that the growing of Oto's forces is tied to whatever is going down business wise in Yuga." 

Sakura puts her hands behind her back. She folds one fist in the other and wonders what in the world would possess Tsunade to send her on a mission that would have anything even remotely to do with Oto. She knows that she can't refuse her hokage. She knows she can't escape missions like this, knows she can't get by on Tsunade's good graces.

She's got to toughen up eventually. If she ever does see Sasuke again, she has to prepare herself. She has to - has to be exposed. Maybe this is Tsunade's way of exposing her slowly. Preparing her for the eventual confrontation.

"The Uchiha," Tsunade says, and her eyes are suddenly on Sakura, pinning her to where she stands, "and a team have been spotted near the Yufuin Onsen. They're spending an awful lot of money for Orochimaru and I want to know what for."

Ino goes still at Sakura's side. From the corner of her eye, she can see Neji's mouth purse itself into a thin line.

Sakura feels like the floor is going to open up and swallow her whole. She hopes that it will. 

"This is not a retrieval op, this is intel. I want you to get in, find out what he's doing, what he's doing it for, and get back out. Whatever you do, do not engage."

Sakura knows that whatever she is, she isn't ready for this.

"Yamanaka," Tsunade says. "Because of your internship with Torture and Interrogation and a glowing recommendation from Intel and Infiltration Corps, you will be team leader."

Tsunade waves her forward and hands Ino the mission brief. She takes it in both hands, then steps back and clicks her heels together. 

"Yes, Tsunade-sama."

"Hyūga," Tsunade says, turning to Neji. "I want you on this operation because you have experience fighting Oto shinobi. I don't want this to come to a fight, but if it does, you know how these people operate." 

Neji nods solemnly. Tsunade's eyes land on Sakura. 

"Other than Naruto, you know how the Uchiha behaves best," her shishou tells her. "I want you to gauge his movements, his physical and psychological state, from afar, and I mean from afar. If you see anything in him that even smells like instability, I want a report on it five minutes before it happens, you understand me?" 

Sakura swallows around the knowledge that this means - this means Tsunade is considering the costs of pulling Sasuke back into the village, or assassinating him. Whatever Sakura says about him will decide his fate in Konohagakure from this point on. 

"Yes, shishou." 

"Good," Tsunade says, leaning back into her chair. "You leave at first light. Your squad leader has your new personas. Memorize then burn them. You all know how to use the Deep Mind Camouflage technique?" 

Ino nods. Sakura and Neji don't. 

"What on earth do they teach you at the academy?" Tsunade grumbles, and reaches into her desk for her sake. 

"Ino, after you're dismissed, run the technique past them. It isn't difficult to master but it is difficult to get stuck in."

The Godaime pours herself a cup of sake, and with her cup in her hand points at the Yamanaka heiress. 

"It's your responsibility to pull them out if they can't do it for themselves, you understand?" 

Ino nods. "Yes, Tsunade-sama."

"Good. Dismissed."

* * *

Sakura feels a little lightheaded. Neji had suggested his home in the branch house of the Hyūga compound for the sake of privacy. He's his father's only son, and even branch families have decent living arrangements considering the sacrifices they're forced to make.

Sakura lets Ino and Neji lead the conversation, only pays enough attention to scan over her persona.

Her name is Etsuko. She's an orphan, had been raised in a pocket of Fire Country without shinobi academies but rife with mercenary groups vying for contracts. She's eighteen. She's supposed to have black hair and green eyes. She's been employed as a bodyguard for a lower level lord's family for the past four years. She's just recently been trusted enough to go on a brief escort with the lord's daughter, who just so happens to be Ino. Who's name is now Mie, apparently. Neji is called Yuudai. Sakura's mind is swimming.

There is an entire lifetime on the briefing before her and Sakura is a shinobi. The lifetime is only a couple of bullet points, the absolute essentials condensed into a ten point list. She memorizes it in under a minute. 

"Sakura," Ino says sharply. Sakura jumps only a little bit.

"I know this is personal," she says, "but you need to pay attention right now. Mind altering jutsu are dangerous. Now listen to me."

Sakura closes her file and looks up at her friend. She's right. Sakura isn't taking this seriously enough.

"I'm sorry," she says. "Please, go on."

Ino nods briskly at her, mantle of team leader settling tidily on her shoulders.

"The Deep Mind Camouflage is a technique that alters your sense of being for an extended period of time. It relies on false memories and habits that are already decided upon before the jutsu is cast. It's a kind of genjutsu, but it's cast on the self, which is why it's easy to get stuck in and hard to get out of."

Ino reaches into her weapons pouch and retrieves a tiny pig shaped charm. Sakura tries not to snort at it. Ino ignores her. 

"This is my totem," she says. "My subconscious has strong emotional ties to it. I've had it for as long as I can remember. When you use a jutsu like the Deep Mind Camouflage, you'll need one like this. Don't pick something silly. Pick something that matters to _you_ , the Konoha shinobi and around it we'll build meaning for your alias."

Sakura nods, hands folded in her lap. Her palms feel sweaty. She has an idea of what she can use and wonders if its in good enough shape for another trip out of the village. 

"The jutsu requires precise chakra control," Ino continues. "Your personas have rudimentary training with chakra, which will make this easier on you. You'll have to rely on your internal sense of chakra exhaustion because your reserves will feel much smaller. When your persona reaches chakra exhaustion, your time in the jutsu is up. You'll feel the urge to grab your totem, which will draw you back into your natural self."

It sounds simple enough. Can't be much harder than focusing chakra for her Byakugō.

"All of this hinges on the way you set up the jutsu the first time. If you do anything incorrectly, your reserves might be too large or you might not set up your internal alarm correctly. You might not tie yourself to your totem. That's why I'm going to use my Mind Body Switch to internally guide you both through it."

Sakura and Neji nod in unison. Ino nods right back and places her mission report as well as her own persona on the low standing table. She begins making hand signs before Sakura throws out a hand to stop her. 

"Now?"

Ino looks at her like she's an idiot. 

"Of course now. We won't have time at first light."

"But shouldn't we have our totems now, when we set it up?" 

"I think Sakura is correct," Neji says in that low soft voice of his. 

Ino rolls her eyes like they're the ones being difficult. 

"Do you both already know what your totems are?" she asks. 

Sakura looks at Neji. He's looking back at Ino when he grunts his affirmative. 

"That's all I need," Ino says. "I'm going to do Sakura first. I'm going to go in and help you set up the foundation. I'm going to make your ties to your totems as strong as I can. We'll meet early tomorrow to activate the jutsu before we head out, and I'll watch the two of you do it before I do so I know everything is going smoothly."

Sakura wonders why she's been chosen to be Ino's guinea pig, and why exactly Neji seems fine with that. 

"That sounds reasonable to me," he says. 

Sakura tries not to snipe, 'Of course it does' right back at him. 

"Lay down, Sakura," Ino orders. And she sounds just like she did when they were children, demanding that everyone follow her way or face her wrath. 

Tiny Ino was but a brief glimpse at the horror that is chuunin Ino. Sakura wishes that she hadn't seen this coming. 

She eases herself onto her back. As she begins to lay her head down, Ino sits just below her until her thighs make a pillow for Sakura's head. Sakura smiles up at her friend and shuts her eyes. 

Ino must make her hand signs and form the jutsu because in the next moment, she can feel the odd presence of Ino in her mind, pressing up against the place where Inner Sakura used to be. 

 _'What is your name?'_ Ino asks. 

She knows already that Haruno Sakura is not the right answer. 

_'Etsuko.'_

_'What do you look like?'_

_'I have black hair and green eyes. I'm dark skinned for someone born in Fire Country. Not white like Mie but not brown either. I have scars on my stomach from where I was given a hysterectomy when I was fourteen. I'm one hundred sixty four centimeters tall. I weigh fifty-six kilograms.'_

_'Where were you born?"_

She doesn't know. But she was raised in an orphanage deep in Fire Country. Her parents had probably died in the Fox Fever epidemic that raged through the countryside. Residual chakra leftover from the Kyuubi attack had brought the fever on. The further away you were from Konoha, the less your chance was of survival. 

She started training to be a mercenary when she was twelve, and officially an adult. Orphanages were mines for mercenaries. It didn't take long for someone to pick her up. She completed her training at fourteen and entered the service of Mie-sama's father, Ojirou-sama. She had her hysterectomy the same week she had been given her brand from her teacher, marking her as one of his graduates. They were gifts from her teacher, gifts ensuring she would work long and hard with little distractions.

She prefers not to think of him. He was not a kind man. 

As a woman, she had been assigned to young Mie-sama's personal guard. The girl is sweet and pretty, but sharp. She will make some idiot man a fine wife, if he does not try to stifle her the way many have tried. 

Yuudai is her superior. She answers to him only. He is usually a part of Mie's older brother Hisao's guard. She is aware that Yuudai and Mie are having sex, and have been for quite some time. She is aware that this mission is largely an excuse for the two of them to continue having sex.

She feels as though she is the only one who cares that Ojirou-sama wants to add more people to his wife's personal guard. He is worried about her being attacked or poisoned because she is pregnant. This is why they are going to Yuga, to find people to add to her guard.

Orochimaru is not their usual type of ally, but Ojirou knows decent business when he sees it. They want whatever Yuga is offering, within reason. Mie is supposed to do most of the talking. Etsuko is just muscle. She's fine with that. It's not a big deal. 

_'What is your totem?'_

Totem. A special item. It is a red ribbon, one she used to wear in her hair when she was a child. It was what the matron of the orphanage would tie around her hair, trying to make her look special enough to be adopted. She would put ribbons in all the girl's hair and taught all of the boys how to shine their shoes. Etsuko had never been adopted, but she always cherished the ribbon. 

_'What does it feel like? What does it look like? How old is it?'_

It is soft, worn with time and her affection. It was once a bright, vibrant red but it has muted somewhat with age. She must have first worn it when she was four or five. It's over ten years old by now. It makes her heart flutter to think about it. She misses it, wants to fold it through her fingers. She always has it on her. Never leaves Ojirou-sama's grand estate without it. 

_'What do you like to eat? What are your hobbies? Do you prefer men or women, both, or neither?'_

Spicy food. She can play the shamisen. Mie taught her how on a whim. She prefers neither, but anyone who can beat her in a fight always has her attention. She's a virgin with a very low sex drive. It helps with the focus, she'll give her teacher that much. She has no interest in sex. At least not right now. 

_'How do you feel about Konohagakure? The Godaime hokage, Senju Tsunade? Shikkotsu Forest?'_

She wrinkles her nose. She has no thoughts on Konohagakure. It's a village, one at the heart of the wide swath of land in which she lives. She makes her living and keeps her nose down. She has basic chakra control, and that's no thanks to the shinobi academy in the heart of the village. She's never taken any shinobi specific contracts when she could help it, but she has little control over what Ojirou-sama tells her to do. Where she is bid, she goes. 

Senju Tsunade is an interesting name in a world full of interesting names. If there was ever a woman Etsuko thought of, it was her. The hair, those breasts, that strength to level mountains. It was enough to make an eunuch want to try. Etsuko was no different. 

Shikkotsu? That sounded like something you said when somebody sneezed.

She is pragmatic, efficient, aggressive, but she does not look for fights where she does not need to. She is curious and lacks attachments. She does not anger easily. She rarely angers at all. She is not quick to irritation or frustration. She has an unflappably cool head, but does have a smart mouth. It rarely gets her into trouble. Her teacher had made sure she was always in complete control of herself. Etsuko, very simply, does not make mistakes. 

_'What does the brand look like?'_

It is a fat, ugly round scar on the sole of her right foot. She can feel it with every step, has taught herself how to ignore it. On it is the name of her teacher. She does not want to think about it. She can feel bile rise in her throat, can smell the hot roasted pork smell of human flesh, of her own flesh. It is the only thing that makes her sick to her stomach. She does not want to think about it anymore, so she does not. 

She can feel her body being fiddled with, a sense of a pool of heat in the middle of her stomach. It is large, but slowly it shrinks. Abruptly, she feels like a child, feels alone. She wants to rub her red ribbon between her fingers. It will not make her feel brave again, but it will make her feel whole. 

Something soft is placed between her fingers, and all at once, she is Sakura again. She breathes in and begins to reorient herself. 

"Name, rank, identity number."

Sakura blinks a couple of times. Ino is staring down at her. She snaps her fingers brusquely. 

"Name, rank, identity number."

Sakura licks her chapped lips. 

"Haruno Sakura, chuunin, zero-one-two-six-zero-one."

Ino nods. It's then that Sakura realizes she's holding a thin piece of gauze between her fingers. 

"Neji," Ino says, looking over at the third in their mission team, "are you ready?"

Sakura rises at that and moves so that Neji can take her place. Ino, with great care, begins the Mind Body Transfer and coaches Neji through the Deep Mind Camouflage. Before Sakura's eyes, she can see Neji's features slowly change shape. His eyebrows thicken, his jawline gets stronger than it already is. His skin darkens imperceptibly until it's the same Uzushio tan as Naruto's. If his eyes were open, Sakura knows,  _knows_ that his eyes will be a dark green. 

After some time, Ino slips her hand back into her pouch and produces a scroll. She has a moment of trouble unrolling it, so Sakura slips her fingernail beneath the seal and helps her unfurl it. Ino places a dry piece of the paper onto Yuudai's twitching palm. Abruptly he opens his eyes, and he is Neji again. 

"There are some things that genjutsu won't be able to cover up completely," Ino says, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. "Neji, you and I will need contacts with pupils. I'm sure if you ask an auntie or uncle, they'll have some if you don't already."

Neji nods as he pulls himself up into a sitting position. 

"Sakura, you'll have to dye your hair black," she says. "You can do a temporary dye, but it's easier on the chakra reserves to make those physical changes so it doesn't draw away from the technique." 

Sakura nods and files away the information for her walk home. She can ask her mother how to dye her hair, and won't that be a fun family activity around the bathroom sink. She's sure her mother will just love threatening her with bodily harm if she gets black dye on any of the furniture. 

"I can take care of the personas," Neji says, gathering them into his hands. "Do you need yours, Ino?"

She waves a hand at him, shaking her head no. With a tightly controlled katon, the papers are gone just like that. 

"I'll show you how to do the hand seals in the morning," Ino says. "You're going to wait to wait a night before you mess with it again. Your mind is still making space, and forcing anything right now might rupture something."

Ino rises to her feet. Neji and Sakura follow. 

"We leave at dawn, but I'd like to meet back here about an hour before to go over the hand signs. When we're about thirty kilometers away from the village, we'll cast the jutsu together and we'll continue to Yuga as such."

She swipes the remaining mission dossier in her hands and heads for the door. Sakura follows, because she has hair dye to buy apparently. 

"We're going to have a ride, so that'll be nice."

Sakura snorts. She can just imagine it. What fun, sitting in a stuffy carriage while Mie and Yuudai pretend they aren't making eyes at each other. She'd much rather sit outside and talk with the poor driver. Lord knows they'll be bored to tears. Maybe they'll have something to talk about while the other two neck in the carriage. 

Sakura pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath. Okay. Those are another person's thoughts. That's weird as hell. Much different than having Inner Sakura prowling around in her head.

"At the end of the mission, when we cross the border back into fire country, I'll break the jutsu. Your chakra will be low enough by then that you'll naturally go for your totems. After that, it's just some cancellation signs. I'll root around in your heads to make sure the personalities aren't holding."

Ino and Sakura pull their shoes on as one. Neji sees them to the entrance of the Hyuuga compound. 

"Alright," Ino says, looking from one teammate to the other. "I'll see you two at five, bright and squirrelly right here."

"Roger that," Sakura says. 

Neji nods. It looks solemn but Sakura and Ino know better. He's positively green from being that deep into a genjutsu and not being able to do anything about it because he's the one casting it.

"Until tomorrow!"

With that Ino, twiddles her fingers in a cute little wave and saunters off. Sakura leaves in the different direction. She has to swing by a store to buy a couple of bottles of hair dye. She doesn't know how much she'll need, but three bottles is probably enough. Maybe four. She hadn't had the heart to cut her hair once she returned from Shikkotsu, so there's more to dye than she would have post Chuunin Chop, as Ino liked to call it. Will she need to touch up her roots while she's away? Three weeks isn't a very long time. She probably won't have to touch up her roots. 

Sakura groans, but heads into the village proper. Her mother is going to stab her. Probably.

* * *

Mebuki, by some miracle above, does not stab her daughter when she comes home to see her sink liberally coated in black dye. 

Sakura does not look gift horses in the mouth. She settles down as her mother manhandles her, and doesn't even flinch when she uses an old toothbrush to paint her eyebrows as well. She feels incredibly silly, but her mother takes it all in stride. 

"Three weeks is pretty short for a C rank," Mebuki muses, rinsing Sakura's hair in the kitchen sink. It's sturdier, and can handle the mess more than the bathroom sink did. 

"Just intel," Sakura says. 

Mebuki hums, peering down at the mess in her sink, and then at her watch to make sure the dye has been setting for the right amount of time. 

"I don't really even think it'll take that long," she continues. "We'll probably get done early."

She feels strange not telling her mother about Sasuke. The fact that it's possible that she'll be seeing him. Sakura knows that it was really only a matter of time until she came across him again in the shinobi world, but she had hoped that she'd have Naruto by her side. He was always the one that was going to bring Sasuke home; Sakura had cared about Sasuke, but she didn't have the singleminded determination that Naruto did. 

Sakura had worked for the last three years to be strong enough to stand by Naruto's side instead of behind him. To help Sasuke instead of hinder him. To ensure that Kakashi would never tell her to hang back and play bodyguard while the boys dove headfirst into battle. 

She wasn't as weak as she used to be. Not physically. Not mentally either. But she doesn't know if this is something she's ready for. 

Sakura holds onto the hope that it won't come down to a fight. That she won't have to look Sasuke in the eye, won't have to see what he's become. She - she doesn't really want to know in the same way that she's desperate to find out.

"Well your father and I will leave you a note if we leave before you get back," Mebuki replies, reaching under the sink to find the cleaning supplies that'll clear it up. 

Mebuki nods towards the kitchen door. 

"Let that set, then rinse it out in the shower," her mother says with a little grin. "You can clean the shower when you're done."

Sakura snorts, but follows her mother's instructions. While she waits for the dye to finish setting, she clips her fingernails and her toenails and starts packing for her mission. She'll need nondescript clothes that also didn't resemble shinobi attire. She sticks with more neutral colors, dark blues and blacks. Plated armor would be a bit too obvious, and besides, Sakura didn't know where to find any. 

Armor mesh wasn't too hard to find, especially not when you're raised by a mercenary. She packs light, because Etsuko isn't planning on being gone long and besides, she doesn't seem like a very frivolous woman. She uses an old cloth to dab at the excess dye that drips down onto her forehead or around her ears. 

By the time she's finished with her packing, her mother is hollering for her to rinse. 

Watching the excess black dye swirl around the drain is mind boggling, even when she rinses off her eyebrows. She looks mind bogglingly strange when she looks at herself in the mirror. Sakura tugs at the black hair, longer since she returned from Shikkotsu. She hadn't bothered cutting it while she was there, and five months without a chop had let it down around her shoulder blades. Etsuko's hair was maybe only a little bit longer than that, but a genjutsu covering a couple of centimeters instead of several and a change of color would be easier on Sakura's chakra reserves. 

She scares the ever loving shit out of her father when he gets home. Sakura can't help but laugh at him. 

* * *

 

She knocks three times on Kakashi's door before he answers it. 

He looks - exactly like himself. Exhausted, a little disheveled, but he's got his mask up. 

"What on  _earth_ have you done with your hair?" he asks. 

Sakura flips a few loose locks over her shoulder. 

"Oh, you know, a girl needs a change every once in a while."

Kakashi scratches the back of his head, eyes looking directly at her newly black eyebrows. 

"It's terrible. You look like Naori-san." 

"Naori-san?"

Kakashi produces a book with a lurid orange cover. He knocks it against the door frame. 

Sakura wrinkles her nose. "Did you stay in bed reading porn all day?"

Kakashi gives her a wounded look. 

"Your busy genin sensei deserves to relax every once in a while, Sa- _kuro_ ," he says. 

Sakura rolls her eyes at both Kakashi and the awful nickname. 

"Come on," she says. "I need your help."

Kakashi cocks a brow and leans against his doorframe. 

"With what exactly?"

"I need to know how to fight a Sharingan."

She doesn't have to say anything else. Kakashi gives her a brusque nod. He slides on his sandals, and leads her out of his apartment and towards a training ground. 

It's late in the day, getting towards dinnertime, and Sakura ought to be going to bed soon if she wants to be well rested enough for their early start tomorrow. But this is more important. 

Sasuke won't be able to mimic Ino's clan jutsu. He'd be able to mimic Neji's Gentle Fist, but the Byakugan gave him an edge. 

Sakura had medical ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and her summons. Her skill set was obviously wider, but she was still limited. No matter what she did, Sasuke would be able to copy it and throw it right back at her. 

"The best way to fight a Sharingan," Kakashi says, "is either to go in blind so they can't trap you in a genjutsu, or be so damn unpredictable they can't anticipate your movements."

The only person Sakura knew unpredictable enough to fool a Sharingan was somewhere across the elemental nations, chaperoned by a pervert and a troupe of toads. 

"If you're like Gai, and just bold enough to go in no holds barred, it'll be enough of a surprise that you'll be able to maintain the upper hand for a little while."

Sakura shifts her weight, watching as Kakashi lifts his hitai-ate over his Sharingan eye. He keeps it shut still, waiting for the right moment to open it. 

"Or, you could lay low and get someone with a Sharingan to underestimate you so much that you can slip in and attack while they're focused on someone else."

Sasuke had always underestimated her. Etsuko's chakra reserves were smaller still than Sakura's. While she doubted she could be as unpredictable as Naruto, or batshit insane as Gai, Sakura knew she had her size and her appearance to her advantage. 

If the Sasuke they had known before he left the village hadn't changed his mind about Sakura, still thought her annoying, weak, and in desperate need of protecting, that was an advantage. 

"Ready?" Kakashi asks. 

As he opens his eye, Sakura slams her fist into the earth and forces her fingers twice as fast into the Hiding Like a Mole technique. 

Sasuke wasn't going to know what hit him. 

* * *

They train hard into the night until Sakura can almost lay a hand on Kakashi's back. She managed to drag him into the earth by his heel once, but he substituted himself with the blade of a kunai and Sakura had bled for it, the bastard. 

"Being unpredictable doesn't mean doing what your opponent doesn't expect," Kakashi says as Sakura heals the wounds that bleed. "It's  _you_ not knowing what you're going to do next."

Sakura was a strategist, a planner. She was good at it, but she wasn't a genius. What made Shikamaru so effective and so dangerous, was that he thought of at least thirty different scenarios while he was still in the opening throes of battle. Sakura wasn't on that level. She understood cause and effect to an absurd degree, and she knew her strengths and weaknesses. She played to them, and that made sure she had lived until she was fifteen. 

But she thought about what her next moves would be. Even when she was fighting with Kakashi, there was always a moment when she was deciding what she would do next and whether or not it would work out. Those moments of hesitation, she telegraphed her movements in them, even in the most innocuous of ways. A shift of the eyes, a twitch of the hand. 

One night of training wouldn't shake her of that habit, but when she got back home after the mission, she would be sure to work that harder. 

Kakashi only had one Sharingan, and he saw every one of her attacks coming. Sasuke had two, and he wasn't an ally that would pull a punch and give her a second chance at an attack pattern. Sasuke would go in for the kill. 

"Your kenjutsu is getting better," Kakashi says with an appraising eye, hand ruffling her hair. "Let's have a real spar when you get home."

"Loser buys lunch," Sakura says, and she and Kakashi shake on the wager. 

She'll probably lose, but he'll probably pay anyway. 

She heads home, showers, and washes her hair and eyebrows. She crawls into bed for a night of fitful rest, and rises early the next morning. Her father had left even earlier than she had, and left miso soup and oyakodon for her and her mother. He left a note that said 'See you soon' with a little doodle of his face, smiling up at her.

Sakura eats quietly as to not wake up Mebuki, and scribbles her own goodbye note underneath her father's. 

She heads back to the Hyūga compound. When she gets to the gates, Neji and Ino are already there waiting for her. Neji's face gets a little pinched when he sees Sakura's hair, but Sakura is suitably surprised by the fact that both Neji and Ino suddenly have visible pupils. 

"The seals are simple," Ino says, running through them. Serpent. Rat. Hare. Boar. 

Sakura and Neji run through them a couple of times until Ino is satisfied. Once she is, she waves a hand at them, and they fall into formation out of the Hyūga compound. They reach the village gates in a short amount of time, and they each sign out of the village roster with the early morning sentries. 

Once they're finished, they break out into a hard run. They can rationalize burning a decent amount of their chakra like this; once they slide into the jutsu, they'll be on the carriage ride to Yuga. It'll give them time to rest and for their chakra reserves to replenish themselves. 

Sakura feels peculiar, wearing dark clothes and thick sandals. The ribbon Ino gave her, the one that she took with her to Shikkotsu is hidden in the bottom of Etsuko's pack. Her Konoha hitai-ate was left at home. No shinobi who knew their identification number really needed it, especially not on intel or undercover missions. Having it on you was an extreme liability if someone went through your things. 

She looks to Ino, who moves much too gracefully for someone running full tilt in a complete kimono with a pack on as well. She looks sideways at Neji, at where concealer has hidden his Caged Bird seal. 

 _'This,_ ' she thinks, chewing on her lower lip,  _'is so weird.'_

They arrive at their destination around noon, and one by one, Ino lays Sakura and Neji down on her lap. They form the seals for the jutsu in tandem, and Sakura rises as Etsuko and Neji rises as Yuudai. They watch in placid fascination as before their eyes, this strange blonde woman transforms into their pink eyed, blonde haired Mie-sama. 

"Where's the carriage?" she asks, automatically attaching herself to Yuudai's side. 

They're far enough away from the estate that the two of them don't have to bother pretending they aren't enamored with each other. Etsuko wants to spit. 

"It will arrive shortly, Mie-sama," she says instead, stepping further away to keep an eye out for it. 

It made her instincts stand on edge to think that she just had to wait out there, in the middle of the damn forest for their ride. It felt like begging for an ambush. She puts her hand on her tanto at her hip, fingers curling around the hilt. It's not comforting, per se, but it is reassuring. 

"Don't fret, Mie-sama," Yuudai says in that slick, fucking exhausting voice of his, "you won't have to stand much longer."

And they don't. As if by magic, the people Ojirou-sama hired to drive them the rest of the way to Yugakure arrive. They apologize for their tardiness and balk at Mie's beauty. Etsuko raises one brow as one of the idiots stumbles over himself to pick up Mie's pack and load it onto the carriage. 

"Yuudai-san," Etsuko says, "I can keep watch from outside. Mie-sama is more comfortable with you, so you ought to stay with her. "

She's not the leader of this little escapade, but it'll look better in the short term if these oafs see someone taking charge. This is all about whether or not Mie can procure what her father wants. By all means, she should be giving orders. And Yuudai is Etsuko's superior. She really should've waited for him to say something before she opened her mouth. 

But Etsuko really doesn't feel like pretending she doesn't know the two of them will be rutting against each other as soon as the carriage door is shut. She'd rather they got it out of their systems now instead of when they were at the onsen and Etsuko  _had_ to listen. 

"Allow me, Mie-sama."

He helps Mie into the carriage, and Etsuko vaults herself up beside the driver. He's an older man. Old enough to be of an age with the man who raised Etsuko, and taught her how to use a weapon. It makes her feel stiff and off balance, but he's not that man and she squashes down her fear like it's something to be subjugated. 

"That's some pair," the driver says. 

Etsuko nods stiffly by way of an answer. The man clams up beside her, muttering 'bitch' underneath his breath just loud enough for her to hear but just quiet enough that he could call her crazy if she reacted. 

It was gonna be a long ride to Hot Springs Country. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'know that mission to hot springs country mentioned in 'take this pink ribbon…' where a pretty maiko makes sakura gay and nervous? well …. here's the rest of that.
> 
> in this verse, sakura went to shikkotsu, got her summoning contract, but left before she could become a sage. she still has her scarred right hand, but her grasp on harnessing nature energy is still kind of rudimentary. the slug fam will be present, nao is still sakura's teacher (meaning she still has nao's chakra), but she's not a slug sage. Yet. 
> 
> sakura is v much still a konoha shinobi. the hyuuga are still separated into main and branch families. 
> 
> in terms of canon, this happens directly before shippuden begins, some time before the kazekage rescue op.
> 
> Title lifted from Kinsei by Ziyouu-vachi (Queen Bee).


End file.
